Even though when we think of marriage, we think of a lifelong love and the couple being "endgame," sometimes that isn't the reality for every couple.
But some reasons for divorce are much more unexpected than others.
Redditor Consistent-Boot-5295 asked:
"What is the strangest reason for divorce you have ever heard of?"
The Final Straw, Or Candle
"I know a couple for whom the last straw was my father making a joke at the wife's expense, and the husband laughing at the joke."
"For context, they'd been on the rocks for a while but were doing counseling etc to try to save the marriage. At their son's birthday party, my dad was lighting the candles."
"The wife asked, 'Why did you start from the edge instead of the middle?'"
"The dad said, 'I was worried you'd have nothing to complain about.'"
"The husband laughed, the wife stormed out, and they divorced."
- thefuzzybunny1
Different Fandoms
"A guy absolutely hated 'Star Trek' and refused to have it in the house. His girlfriend loved sci-fi and 'Star Trek' specifically."
"They got married. Naturally, the girl wanted to watch 'Star Trek,' but her new husband wouldn't let her. They divorced some time later."
- Cuish
"Why would the guy be so adamant about it not being in the house?!"
"I loathe 'Friends' to the point I get really snarky and annoyed, but you know what I do when my roommate puts it on? Just leave the room and go do something else like a normal human being."
"No one is forcing the other to enjoy that hobby together. Let her watch 'Star Trek' in peace and find other things to do while she watches it."
- Melvarkie
Stolen Independence
"Her husband was purposely over tightening every jar of food in the house. She finally snapped after he said he would stop and he started again a few weeks later and she filed for divorce."
- f**kswagger
"Gotta say that while it might sound strange on the surface, when you think about it she did the only reasonable thing."
"This guy very intentionally did something that made her everyday life a bother, and he did it specifically because he knew it was upsetting her."
"I mean, this is something I assume she'd be bothered by probably several times a day, and it would make it so she would be unable to cook without him, or eat what she wanted, etc. And he kept it up even after she asked him to stop."
"That's some f**ked up behaviour that definitely makes divorce reasonable."
- rollingForInitiative
"It was so disgusting reading that story and realizing that he didn't just do it to annoy her or to 'keep things fresher,' he did it to make her rely on him to open the jars. If she wanted to cook/eat, she had to go to him for help, essentially making her ask permission like a child."
"The reason the post came about was because he purposefully tightened every single jar in the house and then left her on her own for a week so her only options were to buy new jars or ask a stranger to help her."
"It's all about control with people who would go out of their way like that to do something so petty and manipulative. It's truly pathetic."
- sang-freud
Total Pettiness
"He refused to share the Netflix password. That was the final straw."
- PussyCat0313
"My ex also wouldn't share because he was the one paying for it. He hid those things, like Netflix and Audible, from me so I wouldn't know what he spent his money on and also so I couldn't use them."
"He tried to say that gas and groceries ate up all his money while I was paying rent and all the other bills."
- Wise-Cockroach-7627
Weird Experiences
"My family actually has a Family Law Firm, so I grew up with strange stories of divorce."
"The strangest reason for a divorce? Wife didn’t like that husband made her ex (previous marriage) look pathetic to Wife’s family during a holiday bbq. Apparently, Husband was noticeably better with the grill than Ex and Wife felt that Husband had emasculated Ex on purpose. And before anyone says it, no Wife was not having an affair with Ex, she was having an affair with her stylist."
"The dumbest reason for a divorce? Husband idolized his own father, so when his parents got divorced because his Dad thought his wife was getting old and he should find a young trophy wife (Spoilers: He Didn't). Husband filed for divorce so he could act as his Dad's wingman without any guilt."
- satyrbassist
Quite The Story
"My cousin's boyfriend broke up with her because 'he received a visit from the Virgin Mary in a dream, who told him that for now on he should remain chaste.'"
"PS, he is not religious and of course has another girlfriend now."
- jmnms
Discriminatory? Really?
"This is not the only reason why we divorced, but my former husband and I fought A LOT because I would not make an appointment for him at my gynecologist’s."
"I worked in the office and was the person who answered the phone and set up appointments for patients. He would call, and I would refuse to schedule him in."
"He was not trans. He had male genitalia. He also did not have male breast tissue issues."
"His reason was that he thought it was unfair that a doctor could choose to treat women only. He found gynecological science to be discriminatory against men."
"There was literally no reason for him to see a gynecologist, and I was never able to convince him that a gynecologist is basically a uterus doctor and that there was no reason for a cis man to see one. It was a huge bone of contention in our marriage."
- Throwawayprincess18
Projection Much?
"She accused him of banging his boss."
"As she was a relative we believed her, but I bumped into the bloke a few years later and it turned out he had evidence of her sleeping with at least four different guys whilst they were married. She made up the story to safe face."
"That was one awkward Christmas afterwards…"
- Klumber
A Spooky Romance
"She didn’t like the ghosts that haunted him… he didn’t even believe in ghosts."
- Billbapaparazzi
"'It's not you, babe. It's the ghosts.'"
- Totalherenow
"Would... Would she have stayed if they were different ghosts?"
- stranded_egg
Tearing Them Down
"I don't think it was a divorce, but my favorite is still the 'you smell' guy!"
"This guy kept telling his significant other that she stinks. He'd tell her go get a shower, I don't know why I put up with you, you smell so bad etc etc. It had been going on for years, and she had seen doctors and other professionals and had even purchased medical-grade deodorants and soaps!"
"She could never smell it so she would ask her friends and then be like you're fine. But the minute her boyfriend/husband/whatever came home he'd be like, 'Oh my God, you stink.'"
"Finally she freaks out and says, 'We just need to break up then because I don't know what's wrong with me, and it's clearly making you unhappy, and I don't think I stink at all, and I've been doing everything I can so we just need to break up!'"
"He breaks down and admits that his dad has done that to his mother their whole married life and told the him to do it to his significant other... because if he could keep her insecure enough, she would never leave him. So, the whole thing was a lie. She dumped him."
- Significant_Planter
A Deal Breaker
"I knew a couple that were married for years. The wife became pregnant about year 10 of the marriage. Husband left her because he decided the day the baby was born that he didn’t want children."
- Munchkin-M
"'My god, that is an ugly baby. Welp, I'm out. Bye!'"
- Totalherenow
An All Too Common Outcome
"The couple was actually still in love but one of them became disabled and couldn’t access support benefits unless they were legally single, so…"
- CharlotteLucasOP
"I saw a Facebook post... which was a screenshot of a Tweet recently. It was a girl saying her parents had divorced after 50-odd years, but they were still in love and living together. It was just that he had become ill, so they transferred finances/house to her and got divorced so she wouldn't lose everything paying for medical bills."
- Perennial_Phoenix
Different Tastes
"Long ago, like waaay back when i was just a tiny little pre-license, I had a couple who had differences about what the dude ate."
"Not because it smelled weird when cooking. Not because it violated her religious beliefs or something. No, it was just the IDEA of him eating bacon, pork, ham, etc... and she wasn't jewish or Muslim."
"I suspected this issue was cloaking something much deeper, but I never got to find that out. I saw them for three or four sessions and they vamoosed, and about two months later, she emailed saying sorry, but they'd had a huge fight over the easter ham and she'd had enough, so she filed for divorce."
"It takes all kinds to make the world go round, I guess."
- taurussy
Worth It!
"I heard tell of a man who was learning violin while she was learning accordion, and they agreed to quit learning at the same time to save their marriage."
- StormlitRadiance
So Wholesome
"A married couple owned a semi-detached house."
"They wanted a mortgage to buy the house next door and make it into one big property."
"The bank wouldn't let them get a second mortgage based on joint earnings."
"They divorced with one of those quickie no-fault divorces. One of them got the house."
"The other one applied for a mortgage in their own right to buy the next-door house."
"The mortgage was granted, and the second house was bought."
"They knocked the two houses together with a doorway at the top of the landing stairs."
"Then they remarried each other."
- CiderDrinker2
These scenarios were certainly all strange and unexpected, but when a relationship isn't meant to work, it's not meant to work.
